A Whisper at the Hotel Del Mar. 2012. 553 Hamilton Street, Vancouver, Canada.
Photos by Lina Fitzner.
THE MORNING OF THE SALE, EVERYONE WAS OUT THERE WAITING FOR THE DOORS TO OPEN. THEY ALL WANTED WHAT THEY’D SEEN IN THOSE PICTURES.
Whispers Project has updated its website with details about A Whisper at the Hotel Del Mar, a mural in Downtown Vancouver featuring text I wrote. Whispers Project explains that:
The Del Mar is a hotel downtown at 553 Hamilton Street well known for the owner’s stance that the building remain dedicated to providing low-income housing. It is also currently home to the Or Gallery, a foundational artistic institution in Vancouver, and already features a beautiful text piece by artist Kathryn Walter which emblazons the words “Unlimited growth increases the divide” across the building’s face.
Whispers Project is a series of typographic murals located around Vancouver, and is coordinated by Eli Horn and Jordan Bent in collaboration with local writers. The project is primarily concerned with expression and public space:
The Whispers were designed to reference the scale and style of commercial hand-lettering, but intended to communicate creative content instead of the commercial sales pitch. Enabled by barriers of economy and policy, the medium of advertising appears to have monopolized the realm of large-scale public communication. Despite the term ‘public space’ being commonly accepted as equating a sort of commons of the people, most of the physical property in our city is either privately owned, or highly regulated. While plenty of space has been made available for voices willing to pay (namely advertisers), the simple expression of an individual without economic means is rendered illegal.
There are currently two Whispers, and more are planned. Further information about each mural – as well as a map marking their locations – is available on the Whispers Project website.
“Nathaniel awakes early this morning. He sits up on the edge of the bed and looks around his minuscule broom closet of a bedroom. Today he finds himself paying close attention to the unoccupied space of the room’s carpeted floor. Nathaniel recalls once telling a friend that he didn’t need much more living space than the minimum area required for him to do a pushup on the ground. This morning he gets down on all fours beside his bed to test if his current digs meet the criteria set forth by a younger, different Nathaniel. He finds it so happens there is exactly enough space for him to do pushups comfortably. But Nathaniel has never done a pushup in his entire life.” 
